The Pagan Mom Blog

I have no idea what to call this post lol. It’s a hodge podge so far in my head.

So far girls have been back in school since yesterday. Mon & Tues they were out because the schools were too overly concerned and called it off. Nothing happened on either day. This Saturday they have a makeup day. Ironically I find out from the news and a recorded phone call but NOTHING has been said about a time frame. I have no idea if this is a normal day of school. Other counties that are doing school this Saturday have announced on the news and online the time frame. I am now thinking that the city district is just too chicken to commit because they think we will get snow. It’s supposed to be in the 50’s this weekend. So freaking frustrating. I get being concerned for safety but this overly protective bs is for the birds. I am considering homeschool once again because at least then I don’t have to worry about snow days. And I could do year round like I want for my kids anyway. BUT, I have got to get myself established with working at home in order to do this. AND it has to be something that I can do when the kids & I move out.

Which brings me to the marital situation. Nothing has changed. He started trying to tell me he was reading these articles on mental disorders and how insomnia is related (I already knew and this is by far not old news). Basically I took away from that whole thing that he was trying to see if I was having a mental breakdown. Perhaps I am, it doesn’t negate the fact that there is marital bullshit to deal with. And when I informed him that marital stress contributes to mental issues he didn’t have a dam thing to say to it. At this rate he isn’t going to find anything out until I am packing the bags. He will not discuss it. And if he doesn’t care enough to discuss it I am not going to waste my time chasing him down to force him to discuss it.

Work has been nuts. Usually is but this year the boss is stuck at home because it has been snowing hard at his house. They live north of us on a mountain. So that’s where all the snow people have been freaking out over has been. Now people are upset because I cannot keep up with the phone. Hubs has been out dealing with his appointments and I have been by myself. With two phone lines. Piles of work to do. And when the phone rings it’s not one line that will ring but both. One guy even came over to the office because he claimed he called several times and there was no answer. He acted perturbed that I don’t have superwoman qualities.

Enough of the bitching though, it’s not all horrible. Hours at work have been awesome. I had a night out the other night at a Haiti Benefit. $5 glasses of wine (although they didn’t have my Reisling!), free chocolate truffles, and a String Quartet. It was awesome. Tonight I have a meeting with TedXAvl. I am a volunteer in their Hospitality department. What this means, I don’t know. LOL! No the organization offers a night of speaking about Technology, Entertainment, and Development. This event will happen in September so we are in planning mode.

I am also doing the March for Babies walk this year. Actually its me and Molly that are doing it. I haven’t done this fundraiser in a long time but I decided we are gonna do it this year. So if you can help there is a handy button to the right you can click to help us out. If you want to help out but strapped for cash, then please join a local walk. Every little penny helps!

Which brings me to my motivation to get fit. I have 65 days to get myself to where I can handle that walk. So once I get the hubs to order more heating oil in our house (we are out again!) I am going to start doing pilates and the 30 Day Shred video. After tax season I am going to order P90X. It is a tough workout but I think it will do nicely for what I want, which is to shed the awful fat from my body and get toned. And once it warms up I will start walking again. My Droid works nicely as an MP3 player so that will help out alot.

All of this also leads to another volunteering gig I am lining up. We have a street festival here called Bele Chere. It’s 3 days of music, awesome food, craft booths, and 300,000 people crammed into our city streets. I volunteered once before in the Children’s Area. This year I am shooting for a roving volunteer. Basically I walk around and give help to whomever needs it. Whether it is finding a specific booth or band or helping them navigate to their car or finding their hotel. I like that idea better because I will work with one other person and we can roam around while helping others. Children’s Area wasn’t bad last time I just don’t want to be stuck in one place like that. I had sort of a traumatic experience last time. I had tried avoiding working on facepainting because I have no cool drawing skills. But that last day someone bailed on us and I gave in and helped that table. I was there for 7 hours. For the most part kids gave me easy tasks. Once in awhile I got something that I had no clue what it even was lol. But the worst was this sweet little boy, maybe all of 7 years old. He wanted superman emblem on his cheek (the one thing I could do extremely well!). So I was hard at work and we were chatting. I can’t remember the specific question but it was something like “Why can’t I do this, so and so can!” I responded “I don’t know, maybe you should ask your mom and dad”. That’s when the kid looked at me so serious, but not sad,  ”My mom died when I was a baby”. Talk about feeling like a huge pile of poo! And what do you say to that? I apologized to him for it and he seemed ok but I just felt horrible. Like I was supposed to start asking all the kids if their parents were alive just so I could be sure I didn’t commit that faux pas again. Fortunatley his dad overheard it and later came up to me and said not to feel bad. I still did. So yea, I will try my hand in another area this year and see how that goes.

So what is going on with you all????

I have decided that today’s post will feature no bitching, crying or moaning. May be a short post but I am sticking by that lol!

First my girls got more college invites yesterday. This program is called Super Saturdays and is offered at University North Carolina – Asheville. All kids enrolled in the gifted program in the city schools get the invites. They get to choose a class to take and every Saturday for 6 weeks and I take them over for that class. Last time Molly did Physics. This time they aren’t aiming as high. Molly wants to take a cartooning course where they learn animation. Claire is opting for a sculpting course. This is Claire’s first year being in the gifted program and oh my is she so excited. Molly has been mean and told her she isn’t smart like Molly. While that is sort of true, Molly made it sound like poor Claire isn’t smart. The reality is, they are smart in seperate ways so I am really glad she is in the program holding her own. Anywho this program is $69 per class. We e-filed and got our bank loan yesterday so I am paying off a bunch of my own personal debt today. I should be able to pay for their classes next week. They don’t start until April or May I think.

Work has gotten busy. It amazes me how it almost seems like overnight when this happens. One week I am struggling to find anything to do and then BAM I am struggling to find 2 minutes just to pee. But this is good. I should be making lots of money and stowing some away for a rainy day. I have decided anything over my normal weekly pay (from the last few months) will go into the bank between the joint and personal accounts. That way I am contributing to both household bills and stocking up.

With the rise of work comes the lack of internet time. Since I still get up at 5 am I have an hour and a half before kids are up to spend on email and blogging. So the blog shouldn’t be affected but I might decide to stay in bed on occasion and skip out being online all together. If you follow me on twitter, I probably will respond to @replies during the work day (if I see them) but I really won’t tweet until I get home in the evening and after the kids have their computer time after dinner.

I am also currently working on a local commentary about our transit system. This will be published at Associated Content. I got in a bit of a tiff yesterday on Twitter with our transit system. I won’t go into detail but I think that they just absolutely ignore the needs of citizens and whoever I talked to doesn’t use transit to understand. Plus I was in ’super bitchy overload’ yesterday and they got a real nasty side of me.   A bit unfair and I am feeling better today so it will be time for me to be objective and maybe get them to understand what I was saying. We  shall see.

So that is all I got going on here at the moment that won’t reduce me to tears. Check back tomorrow for my Twitter Five!

So, like many other people, I am just irritated at the overwhelming amount of Christmas stuff being shoved in my face. It actually started 3 weeks before Halloween. Not so much commercials but stuff in the stores. I would look for a Halloween section and see a 6′x6′ area for it next to two complete aisles of Christmas stuff. Since Nov 1 my tv has been threatened with it’s life.

So in my effort to enjoy an upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I decided that I would unfollow and boycott anyone touting Christmas stuff on Twitter. Now I understand that some of them target international people as well….I just have the option of not seeing it in my stream. This has ticked off a few and that is ok. They have a right to post their ads and I have the right to get rid of it from eyesight.

So I wanted to take this a step further. I decided to boycott any products or stores touting Christmas sales. I apparently didn’t think this through. It started with Glade. Well that’s not too bad, I don’t buy their stuff anyway. But then came Target and Kohl’s. Now Walmart is on the list (oh the irony since I applied for a job there!). QVC joined today but they won’t miss me either. I am starting to see that I am going to run out of options to shop for, not that I need much anyway since I shop all year long.

It just bothers me that people get so caught up in the commercialism. It’s not like I hear anybody talking about what they are going to make for Christmas dinner or planning a caroling event in their neighborhood. It’s all about what am I going to get Junior that will make him think I love him. Christmas is so much more than just presents. Obviously if your religious it has a spiritual resonance. But for the non-religious it’s about being with family and having fun. I have always made our Yule/Christmas celebrations a month long event with crafts and good deeds. We keep presents to a minimum. I try to make memories for my kids. I grew up in a home with materialistic people. None of my memories were about being with them or getting presents…..all of my memories  are about spending time with the family members who made it special. The meals and the time we spent engaging with each other (which did not include my immediate family as they are lacking in the ability to engage with each other).

I think if more people spent time planning what they were going to do to enjoy the holiday instead of what they were going to buy, I could handle all the Christmas hub bub. Until then I am going to continue whining while I plan out how to stake out the best spot at our Holiday Parade on the 21st. I need the best spot so we can see it all AND get a hold of hot cocoa quickly.